


the smallest things

by taizi



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Families of Choice, Gen, Natsume Week 2018, natsume protection squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-05-31 13:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15120260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: In which Takashi comes into the Fujiwaras' lives much earlier on.





	1. the smallest things

**Author's Note:**

> "Sometimes," said Pooh, "the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."  
> -A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 1; natsume’s birthday

It’s only by a stroke of luck and fortuitous timing that Shigeru’s able to miss work to attend his cousin’s party. At the last second, a coworker’s own plans for the weekend fell through, and she kindly offered to step in so Shigeru could take the time off. **  
**

He calls Touko at lunch to make sure she’s alright with a last-minute trip. She doesn't mind at all, her voice bright and sweet over the phone as she promises to arrange their travel bags right away, and Shigeru is smiling when he hangs up to dial his cousin’s number.

“Katsuya,” he says, “if we’re still welcome, Touko-san and I would be happy to come see you this weekend.”

 _“Of course you are!”_  His cousin sounds delighted.  _“Almost everyone’s gonna be here, and you’re more welcome than most.”_

Neither of them are overly fond of some of their relatives, and frankly Shigeru is too old to feel too guilty about it anymore. From the sound of things, Katsuya is in the same boat.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Shigeru says, only partly dishonestly. As unpleasant as some of his family could be, it’s been awhile since they all gathered together like this -- Shigeru usually opts to stay home or visit Touko’s family for the holidays -- so it’s the least he can do to go with a good attitude. “I’ll see you then.”

At the very least, he reasons, it’s only two days. What could possibly happen in two days?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Shigeru and Touko take the train to Osaka, a pleasant four hours they spend enjoying each other’s company. It’s been awhile since they took a trip like this, and Touko watches the scenery dash past the window with bright eyes.

The city is bright and busy when they arrive, lights stark and neon in the fading daylight. Touko points out three dozen interesting things during the cab ride from the station to their hotel, unwavering in her enthusiasm, possibly to make up for Shigeru’s mixed feelings about the trip.

Fondly, Shigeru suggests walking from their hotel to the izakaya where they’re meeting Katsuya so she can take in more of the sights. Touko says, “Oh,  _can_ we?” and that settles it.

They make it to the restaurant after only two wrong turns, and a host leads them to a private room. Inside are a number of low tables, and several dozen people already seated perusing the menu over glasses of beer. Katsuya spots them after a moment and waves them over. His wife Hiromi beams at Touko and pats the cushion next to hers in clear invitation.

“Glad you could make it,” Katsuya says, pouring Shigeru a beer as he sits down. “How was your trip? Did you find your hotel alright?”

The conversation is pleasant, and the food is good. Shigeru finds himself relaxing as the night wears on, and Touko is deep in conversation with Hiromi and another woman Shigeru doesn’t recognize. She blooms beautifully in a crowd, as much a people person as she was in school. He’s happy he came, if only for her.

When the next round of food appears, some half hour after Shigeru arrived, he catches the sound of a low and ugly back and forth between two unhappy people. He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop -- he’s never been the type to condone in or partake of gossip -- but they’re sitting close enough that he can pick out their words clearly, even over the noise of the rest of the room.

“--can’t believe you brought him  _here_ ,” someone says viciously, and the other party scoffs.

“What was I supposed to do with him, leave him in my house alone?”

“Call a babysitter!”

“The kid would just wear them out. He’s  _odd_ , I’m telling you.”

“I believe you! I had him for three months! That’s why I don’t want him here!”

Shigeru can’t fight the frown that folds his mouth deeply at the corners. He sets his glass down, and glances over his shoulder in the direction of the unpleasant voices. Two women sitting at the end of his table are talking with their heads bowed together, wearing matching scowls.

And near them, sitting by the wall by himself, is a little boy.

He’s fair-haired and pale, dressed in a faded blue sweatshirt with torn cuffs. Painfully young, and painfully small, and for as long as Shigeru watches him, not once does he lift his eyes or turn his head. He is very much alone, for all that this is a crowded place full of family and celebration. Every now and then, he lifts a small hand to his mouth to cover a cough brought on by the cigarette smoke.

Shigeru is moving before he means to.

“Hello,” he greets the child warmly, kneeling in front of him. “My name is Fujiwara Shigeru. Can I ask your name?”

The boy looks up at him in clear surprise. Beneath an untidy fringe, his eyes are a storybook green.

“Me?” he asks. When Shigeru nods patiently, the boy hazards a careful smile back and says, “Natsume Takashi. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Have you gotten enough to eat, Takashi? Why don’t you come sit at the table?”

“No, thank you, that’s okay,” Takashi says quickly. “They asked me not to get in the way.”

“Who?” Shigeru asks, keeping a tight hold on his temper. “Your parents?”

And there -- a shadow of grief, too big and too old to have any place in his young face. His eyes fall down to his lap again, to his hands that twist into his ruined cuffs. He says, very quietly, “No.”

Shigeru aches for him so fiercely it might as well be a physical thing. Now the conversation he overheard makes more sense -- thrown into this light, it’s even more cruel than it was when Shigeru could only guess at its meaning.

“My, my,” Touko says suddenly, leaning over Shigeru’s shoulder, “who is this?”

Takashi looks up at her much the same way he did Shigeru a moment ago, as though all this kind attention must be some kind of mistake. Thankfully, it seems to surprise him out of whatever sad thoughts Shigeru unwittingly put into his head.

He introduces himself again, a little shy. Shigeru watches as the two of them are charmed by each other in moments, and it takes some of the weight off his heart. Touko is capable of pulling just about anyone into light-hearted conversation with absolutely no visible effort on her part, and Takashi is no exception.

“Are you enjoying the party?” Touko asks him, and he nods emphatically.

“Yes. I’m pretending it’s for me.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

Takashi smiles and says, “It’s my birthday today. I’m turning six.”

At about that moment, one of the women from before makes her way over. She scolds Takashi for bothering Shigeru and Touko, and begins to apologize for him, but Shigeru cuts her off with a shake of his head.

“If anything, I’m bothering him,” he says, as pleasantly as he’s able. “He didn’t even move from where you parked him, did he?”

She seems at a loss. “Well, no.”

“That said,” Touko says brightly, “you should come and sit with us, Takashi-kun. A growing boy needs to eat properly, and for your birthday you should get a special dessert.”

He’s hanging on her every word, green eyes wide. “A dessert?” he asks, standing up with her and taking the hand she offers him. “For my birthday?”

“Yes! Let’s go look at the menu and see what they have. Dinner first, though, okay?”

She bows to his caretaker on her way past, as polite and agreeable as always, but the look she gives Shigeru is a pained one. And it stirs something up inside his chest to see her look at him like that -- to see the easy way Takashi passes from one stranger to the next without wavering the way a well-adjusted child might, accepting what he’s told without questioning why.

Hiromi and Katsuya both look surprised as Touko returns to the table plus one, but they’re quick to accommodate Takashi, fetching him a cushion and politely asking their neighbors to put out their cigarettes. The menu Hiromi passes him is comically large in Takashi’s small hands. Touko reaches over to hold it open for him; gentle in all that she does, but almost absurdly so with him.

Takashi’s caretaker says, slowly, “You and your wife seem good with children.”

It’s a hopeful, leading statement. Shigeru gives her a look he is sure no one would be foolish enough to call friendly, but forces his voice to remain polite when he replies, “Would you mind telling me about him?”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Their stay in Osaka extends from two days to almost a full week as arrangements are made. It involves a lot of long discussions, and long phone calls, and long looks from disapproving relatives, but when all is said and done, Shigeru and Touko are the only ones who  _want_ him.

They take the train back to Hitoyoshi. They order bentos from the stewardess and discuss their favorite parts of the city. Takashi’s favorite part, he tells them, swinging his feet, twisting his fingers in the cuffs of a new blue sweatshirt, is the cake Touko got him at the restaurant.

“It was too big for just me,” he says, this little bright thing, so eager to talk and be talked to, “so I shared it with her! Wasn’t it good, Touko-san?”

“It was delicious,” Touko says decisively. “Next time, we’ll have to order an even  _bigger_ cake, so Shigeru-san can try some, too.”

Takashi’s smile is still a hopeful, tentative creature -- exactly the same as when it peeked out at Shigeru for the first time in that dim and smoky room -- but it’s blinding when it feels safe enough to stretch.

“Next time!” Takashi agrees. It’s such a small thing to look forward to, but it’s his. Shigeru hopes they can give him more.


	2. so nothing's left unturned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 2; born family

For the life of him, Shigeru can’t understand why Takashi wasn’t snatched up sooner. The child is well-mannered and sweet-tempered, and haunts the quiet corners of their house like a shy ghost, and opens up like a spring flower when they turn to him with a smile or a kind word.

It’s been most of a week now and it’s still no hardship, having him in their home.

Shigeru slides open the door of the storage room on the second floor and says, “What do you think?”

Takashi takes a careful step in after him and stirs up enough dust that he sneezes.

“Well, you’re right about that,” Shigeru concedes the unintentional point with a laugh. “I’ll need to start cleaning right away.”

“For what?” Takashi asks in his quiet, precise way. His eyes are roving curiously over all the odds and ends Touko and Shigeru have stowed away in here over the years, but they snap back to attention when Shigeru doesn’t answer him right away, as though he senses danger in the silence.

There will be pitfalls like this where Shigeru won’t expect to find them. He’s prepared for that. After all, Takashi’s father died two years ago now, and he’s been shuffled around since then like an unwanted stray. Whatever behavior he learned in that time is behavior he learned to keep himself safe, but Shigeru doesn’t want to encourage him thinking he’s not allowed to ask questions.

Shigeru crouches, tired knees protesting the exercise, and waits patiently until Takashi finds the courage to look at him, twisting his little hands in the cuffs of his sleeves as he does.

“It’s okay to ask questions,” Shigeru tells him. “When I was your age, I was bursting with them.”

And he was, constantly coming up with hows and whys and what fors that drove his mother crazy. Takashi doesn’t seem like a child that could drive _anyone_ crazy, even on purpose, despite all the horror stories his previous caretakers had to share; but he’s bright-minded, and watches everything around him like a little scholar, and Shigeru is certain he probably sits on three questions for every one he dares to ask.

“As for what,” Shigeru goes on, “this will be your bedroom once we get all this junk cleared out.”

If anything, Takashi only looks more uncomprehending.

His personal belongings arrived by mail a couple days ago, sent along by whoever he was living with previously, and everything he has to his name fits comfortably in a single cardboard box. He probably isn’t used to the concept of an entire room, filled with things, and all of it his.

Shigeru feels the bite of a newly familiar anger that is never too far away anymore rise up in his chest like a reliable friend.

Why take the child in, he wishes he could ask of countless nameless faces, if you weren’t prepared to care for him?

“My room?” Takashi parrots in the meantime, his eyes round. He takes in the cluttered space with new appreciation.

Shigeru rests a hand on Takashi’s fair hair, ruffling it lightly.

“Just you wait,” he says, in a confiding manner. “It doesn’t look like much now, but Touko-san has a lot of plans.”

She picked up a catalog at the combini and circled ads for dressers and child-sized storage beds and play tables, and called a few of her friends in town with children Takashi’s age to get their advice. Last Shigeru heard, Touko and Kitamoto-san were going shopping on Sunday, and they were taking Kitamoto’s truck, which guaranteed they intended to return with a large haul.

Touko has a one-track mind when it comes to a person to care for. Shigeru has never needed much looking after, so she has energy to spare for Takashi.

And good thing she does.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Shigeru comes home from work on Friday to find Touko and Takashi unboxing his belongings in the sitting room, the porch doors slid open to let in the sun and birdsong.

Touko is appraising Takashi’s books and toys with enthusiasm better suited precious gems or works of art, and Takashi is looking up at her like she hung the moon.

Warmed by the picture they make, Shigeru moves to join them. Takashi’s smile for him is shy at first, but when Shigeru ruffles his hair fondly it turns into something brighter. He shuffles closer to Touko to make room for Shigeru and rummages through his box with renewed energy.

“One last thing,” he says, the most animated he’s been since Shigeru met him. “My favorite thing!”

And from inside a book, he produces a creased and fading photograph. Touko’s breath catches and Shigeru feels his own heart lurch, like he missed a step going down the stairs.

“These are my parents,” Takashi says, but it’s not something he needs to explain. He’s quite obviously the product of the people in that picture. He has his mother’s face and his father’s smile, but Shigeru will never know which one he sounds more like, which one he might take after in cleverness or mischief as he grows up.

“They look like wonderful people,” Touko says very gently. She puts an arm around Takashi’s shoulders. The boy’s smile trembles, and he leans into her like he expects her to retract the touch at any moment. “I’m sure they’d be very proud of you.”

Takashi is six years old and in the care of people he doesn’t really know and he’s holding all that’s left of his family in his hands -- but his tears are quiet when they come, as though he's had plenty of practice at pushing his sorrow down into something smaller and easier for him to carry.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They set up a small shrine in the corner of the room that evening. The picture of the Natsume couple is framed, incense left burning at one side, and Takashi watches everything with wide, wondering eyes. When Touko sets a dish of the grilled skewers they had for dinner in front of the photo, he can’t help himself anymore.

“Can,” he starts to ask, and hesitates. When no one scolds him, he goes on, “Can they really stay there? You won’t take them down?”

“Of course they’ll stay there,” Shigeru tells him firmly, thinking the house would have to come down around their ears for that photo to budge an inch. “And you can talk to them whenever you like.”

The transformation that sweeps across Takashi’s face is priceless. He lights up like a switch was flipped somewhere inside, smiling like a child his age should, and says, “I want to tell them about my birthday, when Shigeru-san came to say hi, and Touko-san got me cake! Is that okay?”

Touko clasps her hands together, eyes overbright but not quite spilling over. “We’d be so happy if you introduced us to your mama and papa. I would have loved to meet them.”

“I didn’t really know my mama, either,” Takashi admits easily, like it’s not a truth that digs nails into Shigeru’s heart, “but my papa was really nice. And since you’re both really nice, too, I think he would have liked you a lot!”

Shigeru finds himself hoping that's true. 


	3. leave a light on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 3; dreams

“Don’t you like your room, Takashi?” Touko asks him over breakfast, in a careful tone. “Is there something about it that we need to fix?”

In the four days since they moved out the clutter and moved in the furniture to make the former storage room a suitable bedroom for a six year old boy, Takashi has crept in to sleep in Shigeru and Touko’s room every night. 

But the boy shakes his head, eyes wide.

“It’s the best room I’ve ever seen,” he insists, childishly earnest. Shigeru smiles despite himself. 

“Well, that’s good to hear!” Touko smiles, too, but she’s like a dog with a bone. “But is there some reason you don’t like sleeping there?”

And the light falls out of Takashi’s eyes like someone pushed it over a precipice into uncertain darkness. 

It’s unsettling to see a child’s face shut down as quickly as Takashi’s does. Touko is halfway around the table in as much time as it takes Shigeru to catch his breath. 

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” she soothes quickly, kneeling beside Takashi’s chair, tucking the hair out of his eyes, “you’re not in trouble, we’re not angry. I just want to make sure you feel comfortable, that’s all. If you don’t want to sleep in your room, you don’t have to.” 

Takashi’s mouth trembles, something Shigeru has seen people his own age do when they’re trying to push back tears. Under Touko’s gentle hands, it’s a losing battle. His eyes water and spill over, fat tears that roll down his cheeks, and his little shoulders hitch with the first sob, and then another. 

“I don’t want to go anywhere else,” he cries, “I want to stay here.” 

Touko shoots Shigeru a look of utter alarm, even as she folds the boy into her arms. 

Truthfully, Shigeru’s heart aches for the little scrap of a child, so certain of being unwanted where he isn’t certain of anything else. Passed around as much as he was in two years, he only learned that everything and everyone in his life is impermanent; the only thing he knows to expect is unwelcome change.

It will be a long walk down a long road, convincing Takashi to believe anything different, but they have the time. Shigeru would not have opened their home to him if they didn’t.  

“Takashi, you don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to,” Shigeru tells him firmly. “We aren’t sending you away.”

Wet green peeks at him from over Touko’s shoulder, and Takashi lifts a hand to rub at his face. Touko rubs his back, murmuring to him softly, and it might be that more than anything that lends him the courage to say, “The other times I told, no one believed me.”

“You haven’t told us yet, dear one,” Touko tells him, voice light the way it is when they tease each other over house chores. “Maybe this time will be different.”

He’s so young, and children are so resilient. If he had been older when Shigeru found him -- if the years had stacked on, one after another, of coldness and cruelty where there should have been, at the very least, base compassion -- then he wouldn’t have been able to give his trust to them so easily. 

But as it is, Takashi looks at them, and sees the kind people who bought him cake and let him pick out the covers for his bed and tucks him into a futon between theirs when he slips into their room at night. 

And for a six year old who has been given so little in the way of good things, it’s enough. 

“I see monsters,” he tells them. His voice is quiet and somehow bold, as he bares his heart to them at the breakfast table. “They like to pick on me when I’m by myself. I’m by myself most at bedtime.” 

Touko lets go of all her breath in a big rush. “Oh,  _ Takashi _ .”  _ ‘Is that all?’  _ she doesn’t add, rightly so, but Shigeru understands her sense of relief. “Monsters are something worth being afraid of! Of course you wouldn’t want to sleep alone!”

Takashi stares at her, uncomprehending, and then risks a glance at Shigeru; looking like he has no idea what to make of either of them when Shigeru smiles. 

Children imagine monsters when they feel unsafe, and Takashi has had very few reasons to feel  _ safe  _ over the years. It’s no wonder the boy has nightmares.

“Well, Shigeru-san,” Touko says, turning to encompass him in a playfully no-nonsense look. “It appears as though our next order of business is monster-proofing Takashi’s bedroom.”

“We had better monster-proof the rest of the house while we’re at it,” he agrees solemnly, “just to be on the safe side.”

Takashi’s eyes are still a little red from crying, but the fear in his face has been swallowed up by wonder. 

“You  _ believe  _ me?” he says, like it’s a miracle if it’s true.

“Of course we do,” Touko says. “Now, what might keep the monsters away?”

Takashi rubs at the tear-tracks on his face with a sleeve, shaky but thoughtful. “Um -- they don’t like shrines or temples. I used to hide in places like that.”

Shigeru thinks of other things the boy might have run and hid from, and firmly turns his mind from the horrible idea. One problem at a time, or nothing will be helped. 

Touko claps her hands together, smiling brightly. “I know! Why don’t we go to the Yatsuhara Temple and get some talismans? We might even ask the priest to help us place some ofuda in the house.” 

“What do you think, Takashi?” Shigeru asks the boy gently. “Will something like that help?”

“I -- I, I’ve never tried it. No one’s ever gotten me a talisman before.” There’s  _ hope  _ in his eyes, like he’s looking at the first rung of a ladder out of this pit he’s fallen into. His face, remarkably, is working towards a tentative smile. “You’ll really -- really?”

Such a  _ simple, easy  _ thing to do -- listen to his fears, and take steps to make him feel safe. How can it be that Shigeru and Touko are the only ones to do even this much?

“We’ll go after breakfast,” Touko says firmly, and plants a kiss on his forehead for good measure. 

And there it is -- an honest to god laugh. It’s quiet, and sounds like it was surprised out of him, but it lingers in the room like the last golden note of a long-lost song, and it lingers with Shigeru for a lot longer than that. 


	4. where you need to go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 4; sunshine

It’s a cloudy July afternoon, and Touko keeps looking out the window. Takashi promised to come home before the rain started, not that he ever strays very far from the house, but Shigeru knows better than to tell Touko not to worry.

Sure enough, as the first few raindrops tap against the kitchen window, the front door rattles open and Takashi’s dear voice calls out, “We made it!”

“It was right behind us,” Satoru exclaims, breathless. “Wasn’t it?”

“Mm, but we’ll be safe here,” Kaname is piping up as Touko makes her way into the hall to greet them. “Papa put up lots of new charms last time we came to visit.”

Shigeru smiles when the children all file inside. Takashi edges shyly around the table for a hug, so Shigeru folds his paper and wraps an arm snugly around the boy’s shoulders.

The trip to the temple did wonders, and not only in helping Takashi get a good night’s sleep in his own room. There was a visiting priest there who had a son Takashi’s age; a sweet boy but a little sickly, and painfully shy.

He and Takashi hit it off immediately, and were already fast friends. He’d be leaving with his father before the school term started in August, but the priest had confided in Touko and Shigeru that he was considering moving to Hitoyoshi permanently.

“It’s nice here,” he said, looking out over the temple grounds, out past them at the dense woods. “There are dangers, certainly, but I would have liked to grow up in a town like this.”

“And Kaname would already have a friend here,” Touko pointed out, smiling. “We’ll have to arrange for Takashi to come visit, wherever the two of you end up.”

Kaname spends almost every day of the rest of the summer vacation tagging along at Takashi’s elbow, playing games of make-believe in the yard or at the park. He’s not the only child to become a regular fixture in Takashi’s life, either; Kitamoto’s boy is often at home, helping with his little sister, so Nishimura confided in Shigeru that it was a relief there were other boys Satoru’s age that he gets along with so well.

“Were the three of you playing a game?” Touko asks, bringing snacks over to the table for them. “It sounds exciting!”

“Takashi’s monsters were chasing us,” Satoru says solemnly, swinging his feet from the chair he climbed into. “But he said his house was safe, so we ran all the way here.”

“Oh, my,” Touko says, pressing a hand to her mouth, in part to hide the smile forming there. “I’m glad you made it. Were they very scary?”

“I can’t really see them,” Kaname admits in his soft way.

“Me either,” Satoru says plainly. “But they’re definitely there if Takashi says so. Who’d lie about that?”

Takashi cants a bright, wondering look at his friends, then glances up at Shigeru. He pulls his omamori out from where it hides beneath his T-shirt, and says, “I think I need to ask Tanuma-ojisan to make me a new one of these. They came really close to me today.”

Shigeru doesn’t point out that most people don’t circulate through talismans at the rate Takashi does, and instead says, “We can ask him when he comes to pick up Kaname.”

That gets him a shining smile, and the quick press of a return hug, and then Takashi is leading the way up the stairs to his room as his friends follow quickly behind. Their animated chatter fades when Takashi’s door rattles shut, and Touko sits at the table with a sigh.

“He’s doing so much better now,” she says fondly. “I’m so glad. I was worried, with his starting school next month, but he’s got so many friends already. You know, I saw him talking to the Taki girl at the supermarket yesterday.”

Shigeru feels his eyebrows go up, both amused and somewhat impressed. “The same little girl that hides behind her mother’s leg when anyone says hello to her?”

“The same one.” Touko looks wistful and proud and fond all at once. “A few words from Takashi opened her right up. They were looking at a kitten calendar together when I found them. He’s a good boy, Shigeru-san. He’s been good all his life, I’m sure of it. I can’t understand how no one’s been good to him until now.”

Shigeru reaches over to fold a hand over hers, squeezing gently. He understands the pain in her eyes, the faint anger, the grief. Takashi’s been with them for so short a time, but already the house feels a little emptier when he’s gone.

“He deserved better than that,” Shigeru says firmly. “We’ll just have to see that he gets it.”

Shigeru doesn’t quite notice when the rain stops, hardly ten minutes later. He doesn’t need to, as they have their own weather service announcement in the form of three pairs of feet thundering back down the stairs, and Takashi poking his bright head through the doorway.

“The rain stopped! Can we go back outside?”

“Only if you promise to steer clear of puddles,” Touko says immediately. “Kaname, Satoru, your parents won’t thank us if we send you home covered in mud, will they?”

She receives solemn vows that they’ll all stay clean, and releases them with a playful wave of her hands. Satoru is heard saying from the genkan, “We can just fall in the river if we get dirty,” and Shigeru hides a snort of laughter behind his cup.

“I suppose it’s good for boys to get into mischief,” Touko says with an air of despair. “I just hope they don’t catch cold.”

“They’ll be fine,” Shigeru says. The front door rattles open and closes again on the sound of Takashi’s voice -- cheerful and unrestrained and possibly the brightest thing for miles.

The house sighs a little, as if resettling around his absence, and Shigeru gives the sky outside the window a quick glance.

The faint gray clouds are clearing, the summer storm headed another way. The sun is peeking through again, irrepressible; warming the grounds Takashi is running across and soaking up his favorite places to play.


	5. in the interest of full disclosure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 5; yokai & humans

Takashi brings home a cat.

It’s a fat, ugly thing, too big for Takashi’s thin arms, but it seems to be an agreeable creature. It hangs in Takashi’s grip like a toy, blinking lazily at the house and ignoring its inhabitants entirely.

“What a silly-looking cat!” Touko says, crouching in front of him. “Where on earth did you find it?”

“I was playing in the woods with Satoru and Atsushi and we accidentally woke him up,” the boy explains, hefting the heavy cat a little higher. “He’s a special cat. He can turn really big, and he can fly.”

Shigeru and Touko trade knowing looks. There’s a doe-eyed look of longing on Takashi’s face, the same hopeful expression he gets when something in a storefront window catches his eye, or when Shigeru comes home from work a little earlier than usual. He can’t always bring himself to outright ask for things -- they’ve not quite made it that far, not yet -- but it’s never hard to guess.

“That _does_ sound special. Do you think he might like to live here with us?” Touko asks, and Takashi brightens like a little sun.

“Can he? Thank you!”

Smiling, Touko reaches over to card the long hair out of Takashi’s face, and scratches the cat behind the ears while she’s at it. “What’s his name?”

“He lets me call him Nyanko-sensei.”

Shigeru chuckles before he can help himself. “A noble name for a noble creature.”

Takashi beams, but the cat gives him a narrow-eyed stare.

 

* * *

 

The cat becomes Takashi’s constant companion. It follows him to school, and dozes under his chair at mealtimes, and seems to recognize his friends. It allows Tooru to coo and cuddle it with an air of dignity better suited royalty than a fat housecat, and sits heavily on Satoru when it seems like he’s about to get himself into trouble.

“It’s a very smart cat,” Touko says one evening, while Shigeru helps her clean dinner dishes, and Takashi and Tooru work on their homework in the next room. “I was boiling water, and went to answer the phone when it rang, and must have been distracted for much longer than I thought -- Nyankichi came to warn me that the pot was overflowing!”

“It probably didn’t like the sound of the water hissing on the burner,” he says, and is treated to his wife’s pouting face.

“Don’t make me look silly! One of these days, Nyankichi is going to break down and talk, and then you’ll be the one I get to tease.”

Shigeru laughs lightly, amused, and says, “When that day comes, I’ll deserve it.”

Touko shoos him out of the kitchen with a cup of tea to drink with his newspaper, and he steps into the sitting room in time to hear Tooru say, “We have to take him to meet ojiichan. Ojiichan is feeling a lot better lately, and he’d _love_ to meet Nyanko-sensei. Can we?”

“Sure we can,” Takashi says, happy to agree when it makes his friend light up with a smile. He’s going to be a kind person, Shigeru thinks fondly at times like these. “I like your grandpa, and Nyanko-sensei does, too. He just likes to be grumpy and pretend he doesn’t like anybody.”

“Oh, thank you, Takashi! I can’t wait! Maybe you two can come over on Sunday. I’ll ask mama when I go home tonight.”

The cat huffs, its ears canting to either side of its head, the way a person might look when their shoulders slump in defeat. But it doesn’t squirm or scratch when Tooru squeezes her arms around it or kisses its head, even if it glares enviously at Shigeru.

Touko must be rubbing off on him. A cat glares because it’s a cat, not because it looks at a person with the freedom to sit down unbothered and thinks things like ‘I wish that were me.’

 

* * *

 

The autumn equinox falls on a Saturday, and with two full days off from school, Shigeru and Touko make plans for Takashi to visit Kaname, where he and his father are living in Yatsushiro.

Takashi is practically vibrating with excitement, twisting around in his seat to look out the window every few minutes, pointing out interesting things as they go by.

He promised Tooru he’d come back with lots of pictures, and the disposable camera in his hands is nearly full already, before they’ve even made it off the train. Touko promises to pick up another at the train station, her face full and bright at Takashi’s obvious joy.

Shigeru paid the extra fare for the boy’s cat to come along, of course, but Nyangoro doesn’t seem nearly as impressed by the train ride. It keeps one green eye on its charge and ignores the rest of them entirely.

They arrive late into the evening on Friday, and Kaito and Kaname are waiting for them at the station. Takashi gives a little shout when he sees his friend and runs the last few steps to meet him, the two of them colliding in an enthusiastic hug.

“Hi, Kaname, ojisan! Thanks for letting me come visit!”

“I missed you,” Kaname says, muffled into Takashi’s shoulder but sincere. He blinks when he notices Nyangoro in the bag hanging on Takashi’s back. “Um?”

“Oh, this is Nyanko-sensei,” Takashi says, drawing back enough to look at his friend more easily. He offers a hand instead, and Kaname takes it with a shy smile. “He’s a monster, sort of. He’s grumpy, but he’s nice. Maybe he’ll take you flying while I’m here!”

As if it recognizes Kaname from all the stories Takashi has told about him, the cat warms to the boy right away. It lets Kaname hold it with a patience usually reserved for Tooru, bright eyes alert and watchful.

By the time they leave for home on Sunday, Kaname talks to Takashi’s cat the same way all of his close friends do, like it’s a person who understands their hellos and goodbyes. Takashi gets a lingering hug from Kaname, and a new omamori from Kaito, and only cries a little bit on the way home.

“You’ll see him again,” Touko soothes, carding a hand through his hair. “He’s too far away for you to see every day, but he isn’t gone.”

Takashi nods, head tipped over onto Shigeru’s shoulder, fingers buried in Nyangoro’s soft fur. Between the three of them, he’s smiling again before they’re even halfway home. 

 

* * *

 

“I wonder what’s wrong with Nyankichi,” Touko says one day, holding Takashi’s hand as they walk home from a restaurant. “He’s been a little tense since you got home from school.”

“Oh,” Takashi says, “it’s because I lost my charm. At school, I think.”

Shigeru blinks at him in some surprise, taken aback by how unbothered he is. Could this be the same boy who refused to leave the house without his omamori? Touko, likewise, doesn’t seem to know what to say to that.

“It’s okay though,” Takashi says, reassuring. “Nyanko-sensei won’t let the monsters get us.”

As if to prove him wrong, a wind roars down the street they’re on -- Shigeru staggers at the force of it, and Touko cries out in surprise, but Takashi is yanked away completely, torn clear out of Touko’s hand.

He lands in a little heap a few feet away -- and the street is empty, thank _god_ \-- but he’s struggling now with something Shigeru can’t see. The wind is still -- _present_ , like a hovering creature instead of an act of nature. It snatches at Takashi’s bright blue jacket and tears through his hair, almost lifting him off the ground. When Shigeru hurries forward, it bites at him, too, trying to force him away.

And then, Shigeru feels a weight land on his back like a blow, as Takashi’s ugly cat jumps from the ground to perch on his shoulder. Its forehead lights up, a symbol shining for just a moment before its swallowed up in a white light too powerful for Shigeru to look through.

When the light is gone, the wind is gone with it, blown off to some other corner of the world. Touko is already lifting Takashi into her arms, shaken to tears as she looks him over.

Shigeru is shaken, too. He puts one hand on Touko’s shoulders, the other on Takashi’s, and holds them while he tries to wrap his mind around the last few moments.

Suddenly, a gruff, unfamiliar voice speaks up. “You take that thing off for a couple hours and this is what happens. You’re a magnet for trouble, aren’t you, Natsume?”

Touko blinks wetly, looking up at Shigeru, and then around at the empty street. Shigeru startles when a weight settles against his knee, and looks down at --

“Nyanko-sensei,” Takashi says, reaching for the fat calico with an air of relief. “Thank you. That one was pretty stubborn.”

Touko is covering her mouth with both hands, shocked into stillness. Nyangoro eyes her, and then Shigeru, and finally turns back to Takashi with an air of contempt.

“You said you told them, brat.”

“I did tell them! They’re probably just surprised. They’ve never heard a cat talk before, you know. _You_ wouldn’t talk to them until now because Shigeru-san made fun of your name.”

Touko’s shoulders start shaking while the boy and the cat are immersed in their conversation. Shigeru risks a look at her, and is surprised to find her laughing quietly. She rubs away the tear tracks on her face, and looks around at her little family with so much love it should be impossible to carry and hold.

“He _did_ tell us,” she says, still laughing. “He told us from the very start, didn’t he? And he’s -- he’s okay. And whatever that creature was is gone. And Nyankichi is a _very_ smart cat.”

Shigeru feels himself relaxing, too. Warmed by the relief and love in Touko’s face, and by Takashi, tousled and whole in their arms. He holds them close and says, “Wait to tease me until after I’ve had a drink, please.”

“We’ll see,” she says magnanimously, and kisses Shigeru on the cheek, and Takashi on the forehead, and Nyangoro right on the nose. “Let’s go home.”

It's the cat's turn to looked shocked, but after saving their son it will have to do a lot more than simply  _talk_ for them to turn it away now. 


	6. these are beautiful times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 7; alternate universe (bonus)

The front door slides open, spilling sunshine into the hall, and Takashi’s voice rings out, “I’m home!”

Touko greets him in the entryway, smiling a little the way she does when she has to reach up to touch Takashi’s hair instead of down -- _he’s grown so much,_ she’ll sometimes say, dashing happy tears away as she looks over pictures of the boy when he was much smaller.

The way Takashi looks at her is still the same now as it was back then, like Touko hangs the moon.

“Someone is here for their name,” he says. “Is it okay if they come in?”

“Of course,” Touko tells him, folding her hands, “but only if Nyankichi is with you, that’s the rule.”

“Mm! He’s keeping an eye on them outside.”

Takashi toes out of his shoes and steps up into the hall next to Touko. He turns to the open door, facing whatever is standing in the empty threshold, and says, “Come on, then. No, you have to come through here, so my parents can meet you.”

Shigeru, lingering in the doorway of the kitchen, gives into his curiosity and steps out to join his wife. Over the years, this never gets less interesting.

Nyangoro comes through first, waddling fatly to sit by Takashi’s ankles. His eyes are narrow but he doesn’t look particularly annoyed. And then a brush of wind stirs through the genkan, and something nudges the door closed.

When it steps onto the rug, onto the circle hidden beneath it that Tooru drew, it becomes visible to Shigeru and Touko -- a woman, this time, with sweeps of long black hair and a mask that hides her face, dressed in a simple green kimono.

“You don’t have to introduce yourself,” Takashi says, and his voice pitches into something lower, something soft. “I know it’s hard when people look at you. Just come through here, and sit down. I’ll give you back your name.”

She bobs her head and hurries forward, slipping out of sight again. Nyangoro snorts, and follows his charge into the sitting room.

“I’ll make some tea,” Touko says decisively. “Will you sit with him?”

The magic is over by the time Shigeru joins the boy at the low table. Natsume Reiko’s book is still laying open, the page tore out of it laying nameless on the floor, and Takashi is muffling a yawn in his sleeve.

“Her name was Momo,” Takashi mumbles. He blinks a few times, and grins crookedly at Shigeru, the usual fatigue clearly not sticking this time. He still slumps over to lean against Shigeru, because he doesn’t believe in wasting a perfectly good opportunity. “She was a peach tree. She was nice.”

“Where do they go?” Shigeru asks. “When they leave?”

“To the next place, I guess,” Takashi says plainly. He’s warm under Shigeru’s arm, as heavy and gangly as a teenage boy should be. “But not all of them leave, you know. They just turn into something even I can’t see. Sensei says some of them are still around. He says as long as I think of them, they’re never really gone.”

Shigeru smiles. “Nyangoro is an old softy, isn’t he?”

Takashi tips his head back and laughs. “He _really_ is!”

Nyangoro gives them a look of scorn the likes of which only a cat could muster.

“Pardon the intrusion!” a bright voice calls out at the front door. “Hi, obasan! Is Takashi home?”

Takashi straightens immediately, twisting around, and is just in time to see Tooru stick her head through the sitting room door. She grins, and Takashi grins back -- partners in crime, those two.

“I need you for a secret mission,” Tooru says sweetly, and Takashi levels a knowing look at her.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with Kaname’s surprise birthday party tonight, would it?”

“Well, _maybe_.”

“Takashi, come _on!”_ Satoru calls from behind her, sounding particularly put-upon. “Atsushi got to be the one keeping Kaname distracted, and Tooru made me carry all the stuff. There’s no _way_ I’m lugging all this up to the temple by myself. Hey -- Giant Nyanko-sensei could carry this all in like, one _foot._ Why don’t we make him do it?”

“Go on,” Shigeru says by way of permission, giving the boy a nudge with his shoulder. Takashi’s thanks is present in his bright eyes, and the playful way he nudges back before climbing to his feet.

Touko is already armed with a travel thermos, pressing the tea into Takashi’s hands the second he’s upright. She says, “Come home safely tomorrow, and call us if you’re going to be late.”

Takashi tucks the tea into his messenger bag, and the Book goes in after it, and his lucky cat claims its favorite spot on his shoulder. There’s a charm hanging from the strap of his bag, more out of sentiment than any lingering need of its protection. He follows after his friends at a run, leaning on Tooru to get his sneakers back on, absorbed into their mischief and chatter before he’s halfway out the door.

“Bye mom! Bye dad!” he calls, and slides the door shut behind him.

Shigeru looks across the table, at where the spirit of a peach tree sat minutes ago. For the few seconds he got to see her, Shigeru thought she looked lovely, if a little bit lonely -- and he takes comfort in knowing her last moments here were with someone gentle and kind.

“You’d be so proud of him,” he says quietly, to the picture on the shrine in the corner. "He's _good_."

Takashi doesn’t always remember to greet the picture of those two smiling faces anymore -- doesn’t say goodmorning and goodnight to them every day, the way he did when he was younger, sadder -- but it’s an oversight Shigeru thinks Takashi’s first parents would be happy to forgive.

A warm wind stirs through the room, as though in agreement. Shigeru is smiling when he folds open his newspaper.


End file.
